


'tis the damn season

by Oliviet



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Happy Ending, Post Season 3, some mutual pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29398788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliviet/pseuds/Oliviet
Summary: Based off of the Taylor Swift song with the same name, Veronica returns home to Neptune from Stanford for Christmas and gets caught up in the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens with her and Logan."But as the years kept passing without him in her proximity, she couldn’t help but question her own mistakes. She couldn’t help but let the what-if scenarios run rampant through her mind. What if she hadn’t let the Madison thing freak her out so much? What if she’d taken him back that day in the cafeteria? Another summer together...was that all they were ever destined for? It never stopped - all the wonderings about what could have been. Some days it had her wishing those choose-your-own adventure stories could apply to her life, and she could just restart and see how differently things would have worked out."Part of the VMFF Galentine's Day Gift Exchange. Happy Galentine's Day darlininmyway!
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Comments: 13
Kudos: 68
Collections: VMFF Galentine's Day Gift Exchange





	'tis the damn season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlininmyway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlininmyway/gifts).



> I do not own these lyrics. Taylor Swift does.

_ If I wanted to know who you were hanging with _

_ While I was gone I would have asked you _

_ It's the kind of cold, fogs up windshield glass _

_ But I felt it when I passed you _

_ There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me _

_ But if it's all the same to you _

_ It's the same to me _

She’d almost been afraid to come home for Christmas that first year away at Stanford. Sure, she was excited to see her dad and her friends, but she’d been so nervous about accidentally running into  _ him _ . Neptune was a small town and it had always seemed in years past when she was trying to avoid him that he was suddenly everywhere. He was doing it to get to her and it usually worked. And she just couldn’t deal with him and all of their baggage that year. 

But when she got home and not so subtly inquired about his whereabouts to Mac, her friend had told her he’d gone on a surfing trip with Dick for the holidays. And she’d been fine with that - pleased even. She could relax during this break from the stress of school and not have to worry about any awkward encounters with him. 

She’d been more open to seeing him that second Christmas at home. She’d spent the summer still up in Stanford working an internship, and still hadn’t seen him since she’d watched him punch out Gory in the Hearst cafeteria. But he was, once again, nowhere to be found in Neptune that December. She was starting to think that he was avoiding her just as much as she was previously trying to avoid him. 

She couldn’t blame him. Things had ended between them on rather ugly terms. But as the years kept passing without him in her proximity, she couldn’t help but question her own mistakes. She couldn’t help but let the what-if scenarios run rampant through her mind. What if she hadn’t let the Madison thing freak her out so much? What if she’d taken him back that day in the cafeteria? Another summer together...was that all they were ever destined for? It never stopped - all the wonderings about what could have been. Some days it had her wishing those choose-your-own adventure stories could apply to her life, and she could just restart and see how differently things would have worked out. 

But another year passes and another holiday season rolls around. She just ended things with the guy she’d been seeing. He was nice, fun, but he didn’t make her feel anything. If anything at all, he made her feel...numb. He wasn’t what she’d left behind. He couldn’t soothe the ache she’d never managed to heal. 

Two years ago, she’d dreaded coming home to Neptune for Christmas because she couldn’t handle seeing Logan. This year, she dreads coming home because she figures she  _ won’t _ be seeing him. Whatever they’d had together once upon a time, it was nothing but a fever dream at this point. She’d been the one to let him go and she hadn’t been able to stop kicking herself for it.

Veronica pulls into the gas station on the edge of town. An involuntary shiver runs down her spine as it does every time she’s forced to stop here and fill up. The gas station where the school bus had left without her before an explosion sent it over the edge of a cliff. Never an easy memory to shake no matter how hard she tries. 

She steps out of her car to unscrew the gas cap, glancing in the direction where she could have sworn she had seen Lilly’s ghost all of those years ago. What her gaze finds on that side of the building is another ghost of an entirely different kind: Logan Echolls. 

Seriously, what is it with this gas station?

She freezes, rooted in place as the gas pump beeps at her to remove her credit card. She stares after him instead, wondering if he’s actually there or if her loneliness is simply playing mind tricks on her. Does she go try and talk to him? What would she say? Does he even want to see her? Is he leaving town again or staying this time? Does he always leave because of her?

“Lady, take out your damn card so that thing stops beeping,” grumbles the man at the pump on the other side of hers.

Veronica mumbles an apology before pulling her card out and selecting a fuel grade. She pulls the gas pump from its cradle and guides it to her gas tank, glancing back over in Logan’s direction. 

He’s staring right at her. 

_ Oh fuck. _

What does she do? Smile at him? Wave? Temporarily abandon fueling her car to go talk to him? 

Even with the distance between them, she can see the coldness in his eyes - the sadness. That ache in him put there by the ache in her. He’s not ready to see her. He may never be. She gives him a little wave anyway, hoping maybe to ease some of the tension. He only nods in acknowledgment, before slipping into his car and driving away.

_ So we could call it even _

_ You could call me babe for the weekend _

_ 'Tis the damn season, write this down _

_ I'm stayin' at my parents' house _

_ And the road not taken looks real good now _

_ And it always leads to you in my hometown _

“I swear he was looking at me like I had two heads,” Veronica groans, pulling the pillow on her bed over her face ready to scream into it. 

“You’re overexaggerating,” Mac tells her from where she sits in Veronica’s old desk chair. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“It  _ was _ that bad.”

Mac lets out a long sigh, causing Veronica to pull the pillow away and sit back up into a seated position on her bed. 

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing,” her friend shrugs.

“Whatever it is, just say it.”

Mac sighs again. “You and Logan…”

“Have always been a trainwreck?” Veronica supplies helpfully when she trails off without finishing her thought.

“I was going to say have always had a complicated relationship. You’re the one who keeps labeling it as a disaster.”

“It wasn’t always though,” she sighs, slumping back against the wall. “We were really good together...until we weren’t.”

“Maybe it’s better this way,” Mac says. “If you both keep avoiding each other, you never have the chance to slip into that difficult conversation about what went wrong.”

She presses the back of her head against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t want to get into a yelling match with him. I just want to talk.”

“Right.  _ Talk _ . Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

She huffs, picking up her pillow again to chuck at Mac this time. 

“I’m serious,” she tells her. “I just...I want to know how he is. We were friends for a long time before we were ever - I miss him, that’s all.”

“What, and you want to know if he misses you too?”

She stares down at her hands, picking at a cuticle. “Is that so wrong?” 

“What are you hoping for Veronica? Do you want him back in your life? Or do you just want one last fling for closure to get him out of your system?”

She curses when she picks at her cuticle too hard and breaks the skin, a tiny pebble of blood forming at the base of her nail. 

“I just want to talk to him,” she says again. 

_ I just want to know if he still hurts as much as I do. _

_ I parkеd my car right between the Methodist _

_ And thе school that used to be ours _

_ The holidays linger like bad perfume _

_ You can run, but only so far _

_ I escaped it too, remember how you watched me leave _

_ But if it's okay with you, it's okay with me _

It’s the 24th and her dad is out working a case. She remembers a time not too long ago when she would be helping him with said case. Good old holiday daddy-daughter bonding time. But she’d made a promise with herself to leave that life behind after everything that happened at Hearst. Too many people were hurt because of her. She couldn’t carry that with her anymore. 

But it’s Christmas Eve and her dad said this would only take him an hour two hours ago. Her latest update was that he would definitely be home in time for dinner if not sooner. She has too much pent up anxious energy to stay home by herself and Mac and Wallace are both busy with their families, so she does the only thing she can think of to do. 

She goes to the beach.  _ Their _ beach. Hers and Logan’s. Their - take the long way home, accidentally fall asleep under the stars one too many times, overshare all their secrets - beach. Two summers with him, this is where they would end up more often than not. She couldn’t explain it. He was the surfer, the California boy, the one who loved the ocean. She was always just…

_ In love with him _ .

Veronica tugs the beach towel off the passenger seat of her car and wanders down from the parking area to the cold sand. They may not get white Christmases in California, but it’s a crisp and chilly day for late December. It’s windy too, the ocean waves looking choppy as they roll against the shore. She tugs the sleeves of her jacket down over her hands as she sits down on the spread-out beach towel. Still warmer here than back up in Stanford she imagines. 

She lets her eyes slip closed as she feels the warmth of the sun breakthrough between the mass of clouds overhead. She tries to clear her head, but her thoughts just keep circling back to her summers spent with Logan here. Coming here was a mistake. She should have known - 

Her eyes fly open when she hears footsteps approaching in the sand. She looks up and finds Logan himself standing at the edge of her beach towel. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says softly.

“Dad’s stuck working a case,” she says in a rush like she feels the need to explain herself. “I just needed to get out of the house for a bit.”

“So naturally you came here.”

She shrugs. “It was one of my favorite places in Neptune.”

She watches him nod, turning his gaze out toward the ocean. “Mind if I sit with you?”

Veronica shakes her head even though he’s still not looking at her. “No, go ahead.”

He pulls his hands out of his pockets and sits next to her on the towel, bending his knees up in front of him and draping his arms around his legs. 

“You’re here this year,” she says quietly after a beat of silence, both of them still focused out on the water. 

“Dick has a girlfriend this year,” Logan answers, laughing a little. “I give them until New Years before  _ that’s _ over.”

“You don’t want to be here over the holidays?” she asks, trying to avoid the narcissistic question of asking if he’s never here because he’s trying to avoid her. 

“Why would I? I have no family. Dick has no family.”

“What happened to Trina?”

“She lives in New York. Claims herself to be a strictly theater actor now. A real thespian. She and I were never that close anyway.”

She doesn’t know what to say. Talking to him used to be so easy. Now she’s too afraid of blurting out the wrong thing. 

“How’s Stanford?” he asks after their lull in conversation. “Everything you hoped?”

“It’s good,” she nods. “I miss my people back home, but it’s good.”

“Your people back home miss you.”

Now she glances in his direction, wondering if he’s talking about himself. “Do you and my dad chat often?”

He laughs. “Just an assumption.”

So many things she wants to ask him - so many of them crossing the line into territory she’s sure they’re not ready for. But there’s only so much small talk they can make before they’re left with nothing but the difficult questions. 

_ Do you miss me like I miss you? _

“If you’re ever up in the area, you should swing by for a visit,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders. 

_ Stupid, Veronica, stupid. What the hell reason does he have to be up in Stanford? Besides to visit you… _

“You say that like you almost  _ actually _ want to see me.”

Oh, okay they’re doing this. She figured it couldn’t be left unsaid forever.

“Maybe I do,” she says softly. 

She can feel his eyes are on her and she tries to force herself not to meet his gaze. 

“Well, here I am,” Logan tells her. 

She gives in and turns to stare into those soulful brown eyes of his. She can see the ache, the pain set in deep. She’s sure it’s mirrored back in her own. 

Veronica opens her mouth to say something, but no words come out. She shakes her head, biting down on her lower lip as her gaze drops to the beach towel. 

“You never come home during the summer,” he says quietly. “But then again, maybe this isn’t home anymore.”

“This will always be home,” she says, looking back up at him, not even sure if she means ‘this’ as in Neptune or ‘this’ as in this beach - with him. “I’ve had internships. They keep me pretty busy.”

“I get it. This place is a lot. And if you’re happy elsewhere, why come back here and ruin it?”

She’s not though. Happy, that is. School is good, work is good, her new friends are good. But the ache - the numbness - hasn’t gone away. She needs him for that.

“Can you be happy and still be lonely?” she asks.

“I definitely think it’s doable. Northern California men not up to your usual standards?”

“You set the bar pretty high.” She hears how that sounds the moment she says it, and stammers to backtrack herself. “Not being sarcastic. Genuinely. No one comes close.”

He snorts like he doesn’t believe her. “Oh please, Veronica, you and I both know you don’t mean that.”

“What if I do?”

He meets her gaze again, looking at her with a certain curiosity. “So what, you’ve decided you magically don’t hate me anymore?”

“I never said that I hated you.”

“Telling me that I’m out of your life forever sort of gives off that vibe.”

She winces, drawing her knees up against her chest. “I was mad and I overreacted. I wanted to hurt you because you’d hurt me. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

“No, I think at the time, you meant it. Maybe you have a different perspective now but…”

He trails off and she doesn’t try to argue with him. She knows he’s right - she’d wanted him out of her life for good. But what’s that saying about being careful about what you wish for?

“All right fine,” she sighs. “I magically don’t hate you anymore. I actually…I miss you.”

“And what do you miss exactly?” he asks. “The sex? You looking to be one of those people who comes home for the holidays and hooks up with their ex out of boredom?”

The question bristles her the wrong way and she strikes back as a knee-jerk reaction. “Why’s the idea so crazy to you? You have meaningless flings with everyone else.”

“I wasn’t previously in love with anyone else.”

All she hears is the previously. Past tense. He doesn’t love her anymore.

But she still loves him. 

“What do you want, some big epic speech?” she asks him. “Hell, do you want your own? From prom night? They don’t write songs about the ones that come easy. That’s what you said, wasn’t it?”

“I already lost what I wanted.”

“Oh yeah? And what was that?”

“You.”

_ We could call it even _

_ You could call me babe for the weekend _

_ 'Tis the damn season, write this down _

_ I'm stayin' at my parents' house _

_ And the road not taken looks real good now _

_ Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires _

_ Now I'm missing your smile, hear me out _

_ We could just ride around _

_ And the road not taken looks real good now _

_ And it always leads to you in my hometown _

“Well, here I am,” she parrots back his earlier words. 

“Sure, but for how long? One week? Maybe two? Then it’s back to your shiny new life that doesn’t include me.”

Veronica shakes her head. “You’re not listening to me.  _ I miss you _ . Miss you in a way I didn’t even know was possible. It gets in the way of any new relationship I try and start. It keeps me up at night. It ties my stomach up in knots whenever I do make it back to Neptune. I don’t want you out of my life forever. I want you back in it.”

Logan stares at her, processing. “You want to get back together? I’m not -”

“What I want is to end the radio silence. A phone call, a text message, hell, a postcard - I just want to hear from you. I know that jumping back into anything right now would be a lot to ask for. You’re not ready for that.  _ I’m  _ not ready for that. But do you know how often I come across something and think to myself how badly I wish I could share it with you? I want my friend back. And if somewhere down the line that leads to something more again, then great. And if it doesn’t? At least I can still send you a picture when I see a yellow Xterra and we can laugh about the things we did in the back of that car when we were teenagers. Life just isn’t as much fun without you in it.”

His gaze softens, like he finally understands what she’s getting at. “About a year and a half ago, I went on this hike. I know it doesn’t sound like me, but I was trying to clear my head and surfing wasn’t cutting it. So, I’m on this hike and I saw a bobcat. And I thought to myself, I should take a picture of it and send it to Veronica with the caption ‘it’s you.” But how incredibly inappropriate would that have been? No contact for over a year, but here’s a joke about the sex life we used to share.”

She grins, thoroughly debating the risk of scooting closer to him and leaning against his side. “Probably a wise decision at the time, but by all means, don’t hold back now.”

He keeps studying her, almost as though he doesn’t quite believe that she’s real. “Why now, Veronica?”

“I would have invited you back into my life last year, but you weren’t here and this felt like the kind of thing that needed to be done in person.”

“You didn’t have to wait for Christmas to come home.”

“I know. But I didn’t want to just sneak attack you out of nowhere. I didn’t know if you’d want to see me. At least during the holidays you’d know I’d be here. Wait, how did you find me here today?”

Logan grins at her. “I introduced  _ you _ to this beach, remember?”

She grins back. “Yeah, I do.”

The wind picks up and she shivers against the sudden burst of cold. He slips an arm around her and when she looks up at him with the question in her eyes, he just shrugs and tells her, “Old habits die hard.”

“Are we going to be okay?” she asks, allowing herself to sink against his warmth and familiarity. 

“I think we can manage to find our way back to that yeah.”

_ Sleep in half the day just for old times' sake _

_ I won't ask you to wait if you don't ask me to stay _

_ So I'll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends _

_ Who'll write books about me, if I ever make it _

_ And wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm fakin' _

_ And the heart I know I'm breakin' is my own _

_ To leave the warmest bed I've ever known _

She’s walking to class on the first day back for the new semester, when she hears her phone chime with the sound of a new text message. She digs it out of her bag and smiles when she sees Logan’s name lighting up her screen. The radio silence is over - they’ve finally managed to turn the music back up.

Veronica thumbs open the text message, glancing up to make sure she’s not about to run into anybody if she keeps staring at her phone while she walks. He’s sent her a picture of a Neptune postcard with the caption “does a text message of a postcard count?”

She rolls her eyes, laughing as she types out her reply. “Where do we even sell those things? 22 years and I swear I’ve never seen a Neptune postcard before.”

He types back. “You haven’t heard? We’re the latest and greatest spring break destination.”

“Gag,” she types back. “Tell them to stay away from our beach.”

“Oh so it’s *our* beach now?”

“Hasn’t it always been?”

He sends her back a smiley face.

She’s missed this. Missed him, their banter, all of it. 

“Hey,” she texts back, “you doing anything the week of March 15th?”

It takes him a moment to reply and she manages to locate her building and classroom in the meantime. She picks a seat and then pulls her phone back out to read his response.

“Don’t think so. Why?”

“It’s spring break. Figure I should come and see what’s all the rage with this Neptune place.”

“Only if we can find an area of town far enough away from the actual spring breakers.”

“It’s still a hard pass on the River Styx for me.”

“Oh girl’s got jokes.”

She smirks down at her phone. “So what do you say? You. Me. Spring Break 2010. We never even have to go outside.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

“100%” She sends the message and pauses to pull her laptop out of her bag, before typing up a follow up question for him. “Is it working?”

“How can I resist? See you in March, V.”

_ We could call it even _

_ Even though I'm leavin' _

_ And I'll be yours for the weekend _

_ 'Tis the damn season _


End file.
